Back in business

Yesterday was the first day I felt 100% again, as evidenced by my staying up until 3 in the morning as usual. I'm here for another two weeks...it seems so surreal to think that. But I've been eating (!) good food and doing...the usual, basically. Spending time with people.

Last night the midwife who delivered me, Ruth, came over for dinner. It's a little odd to talk to the person who yanked you out of your mom, but it was nicely not awkward at all. Dinner was very enjoyable and Ruth is a very interesting woman. It's always fascinating to see what people tell each other after not having seen each other or really talked in 17 years. I can't imagine.

On tap for today? Who knows.

Link

Not so much a post as a link.

Ever wondered about Aztec philosophy? What? No! Does that even exist? Well wonder no longer.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/aztec.htm

And my mind continues to be blown...

Failure

This weekend I have failed completely and utterly to do nothing, and this week looks to continue in that vein of failure. Today I finished the Illiad (which I started much earlier this year stopping every 25-100 pages to read something else). I'm certainly glad I did it, and if nothing else it sparked a huge interest for me in the fate of all of the characters before and after the events. Oedipus obviously predates the Illiad and is mentioned several times, but what is the exact time frame? What are Patrokolos' feelings down in Hades about having undeliberately by his death caused the destruction of Troy and of Achilleus? The question is raised in the end, what happens to the Trojan women (answered in another saga, I know)? What about Aias? Hektor's and Achileus's sons? When and where in relation to Troy are the Peloponysian wars? All excellent Wikipedia questions!

I went with my parents to dinner and baby-watch at an ex-students house (she's a professor herself now), which ended up being a good relaxing time to watch my cheeks swell up like puffer fish.

On tap for this week: Rehersal with Cheolseung, hopefully get my license, hopefully get Windows working on my Mac, make it down to New York.

Day After

The day after I lost all my wisdom (teeth) and it's been hectic. William arrived at 7 this morning to have a nightcap (he works a night shift and was on his way home). I hadn't seen him since Hawaii and we had some catching up to do--then Grandpa Paul and Grandma Robin came in on a layover between Oregon and Missouri and we went out to breakfast, where I did just fine with solid food. Heading home I slept for an hour or so, read some more of the Illiad, then got on the computer. I have a site with Kafka short stories bookmarked which was perfect for my mindframe. I read "In the Penal Colony" and "A Country Doctor." Kafka is a bizzare storyteller, but somehow you can't help but be compelled by it. "A Country Doctor" was surrealist shit (as I interpreted it...maybe I just missed the point), but "In the Penal Colony" was really quite good. It's about a man's tragic love for corporal punishment in a humanitizing age. I'd also reccomend "The Hunger Artist," about a man who fasts as an art form in an age that has lost interest in it. But are based around very concepty concepts (fasting as an art and the specific torture/death machine) but with them lead their characters to very human ends.

The website is http://www.mala.bc.ca/~Johnstoi/kafka/kafkatofc.htm if anyone is interested.

Then I went to Robbies and played video games and got ice cream and watched "28 Days Later" (a BAD horror flick). Life really is very strange.

Venus

I watched the move Venus with Peter O'Toole tonight with my parents. Not a great movie, but a very provocative one.

As I see it, the movie raises two central questions, two major themes. The first is old age and death: appropriate since there is only one major character in the film who is not just about on her deathbed. The characters talk about death constantly, and their loss of memory, their trivial old-person joys and their rage and bitterness at age and decrepitude are the real heart of the movie. The last line of dialogue is especially beautiful (no real spoiler here). Two characters are discussing their friend's death with obituary in hand. The last line is delivered with failed nonchalance which betrays its urgency. "How many collumns did he get?"

The second theme is pleasure. To what extent is people using each other for pleasure justifiable? Peter O'Toole plays an aged actor who takes a very physical, romantic interest in his friend's twenty-something niece. He buys her things, tell her things, and every time she is not looking we see him eye her. But she needs him too. A troubled girl, his attention becomes an affirmation of her being, and she has no problems being assertive when she feels things have gone far enough. Both of their wants and what they do to satisfy them feel sleazy to the hundredth power, disgusting and base. But human. And really, if they are fulfilling each other's warped desires, isn't what matters that they are both happy--not how twisted each desire is?

Which brings me to a philosophical/psychological/biological point that I can't help but throw in here. Human beings are not hardwired for happiness--if we were, we would sit around all day smiling until we starved to death. Rather, we are wired to be eternally discontented, trying to reach goals with the purpose of being happy but the knowledge that--if only because it is how we must be to survive as a species--as soon as we reach the goal and the happiness it becomes not enough, and we must set a new goal. Self-help crap always says "don't try to be happy, you can't force that, instead try to set and meet achievable goals." Do our brains provide a scientific grounding for this philosophy?

15 of the fuckers

Before we went to Chile, they pulled seven baby teeth, four and then three, because they had not come out yet and they wanted to make sure there were no complications.

Before I got braces, I had four adult teeth pulled. My teeth are too big for my mouth, and for all them to fit comfortable two uppers and two lowers had to come out.

Today, before I got to college, I got my four wisdom teeth out.

If teeth were lotto tickets, I'd have won by now.

Points of interest...

Two fascinating tidbits that I discovered recently, or at least hadn't thought about before.

1. Biology is a new science. I don't know why this is so revolutionary for me. Chemistry has been around since antiquity in various forms--gunpowder, alchemy, etc. Physics, especially mechanics, has been explained and re-explianed from the idea that all objects had a natural resting place. Medicine, perhaps the closest thing to biology, and human anatomy, have been wildly speculated on (the humors, etc) as an obvious area of interest. But biology, macro and micro, has only been around for a short time. Classifying species--even knowing accurately what animals looked like, let alone how they functioned--is something not much older than Darwin's explination for it all. And the very first microscope was invented in the 1600's. So why, biological engineering aside, does biology seem like such a dead, obsolete science, a collection of dry facts and names? Our model for how the world works phyisically is always changing, people are always trying to fiddle with elements and discover new ones--using biology as a tool is great, but why are we assuming we have it all "right" and not intelligently challenging it's base assumptions?

2. This is a bit about psychology. "Since Freud, we have placed far too much importance on psychology. It's become a religion for atheists: a scientific way to explain it all and figure out how to live a good (or, to be PC, 'functional') life. Psychology is the newest religion." Agree or disagree, there seems to be at least a grain of truth in this statement.

I recently read that Siddhartha Gautama first preached Buddhism not as a religion or philosophy, but as an almost medical entity—a prescription for the mind toward the cessation of suffering. As remedial psychology. Do we, as a society, worship psychology? Yes. But have we always?

Forced Post

I really don't have much to say insofar as organized thoughts or really interesting events. For the last few days I've just been spending time with various people (five of my friends left for college this Wednsday). I've been listening to Pink Floyd and, for whatever inexplicable reason, Rhianna's "Umbrella" over and over again. I have been wasting a lot of time on the internet, because I get my wisdom teeth pulled this Friday and am diluding myself into thinking that I'll be reading a lot once I'm forced into inactivity. I've been reading the blog http://www.overcomingbias.com/ , which is another one by an economics guy who has some interesting stuff to say about the value we assign to truth and the difficulties associated with biases.

The Road

Finished "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy today (I had read another of his, "No Country for Old Men," during the school year). He is an incredible author, although I don't think he has terribly much range. His books all take place in the border desert between Mexico and the US, all the settings barren and characters simple in that their goals are simply to stay alive.

"The Road" tracks a father and son making their way south (no explicit reason stated) in a US/Mexico after essentially Armageddon (again, no explination for it is given). The novel revolves around two elements, which are so simple that they sustain it and make it an interesting read by themselves. The first is the father-son relationship, incredibly delicate and fragile but with invisible strength like a spider's web. It gives immediacy to all conflicts they encounter, the ever-elusive "why should I care?" The second element is McCarthy's power of description. He is as much a painter as a storyteller, as is able to describe desolate nothingness with such detail and precision that it becomes intensely real.

This book didn't so much make me think as it did make me experience and feel...and for that reason, perhaps unfairly, I enjoyed it tremendously but don't value it that much, i suppose because i associate "lit'rature" with "deep thought". A good book, although it defies how I try to measure the books I've read.

An interesting argument:

For the destruction of the environment as a crime against humanity. It seems odd--the environment and humanity are two distinct things, the environment and business are thought of as opposites, and business is central to our way of life. But if humanity is a part of the environment, than isn't any "crime" against the environment a crime against humanity.

Destruction of the environment is not considered a crime against humanity, but should it be?

Crimes against humanity are usually seen as repeated offenses or "policy" toward one group of people along some sort of lines (ethnic, religious, national, etc). Examples include: mass murder, genocide, slavery, indefinite imprisonment without trial, torture, rape, forced pregnancy, and disappearances. The common theme seems to be the violation of "inaleanable human rights" of life and liberty (property/the pursuit of happiness...less so). Anything that willfully, maliciously, and without due cause harms a group of people. With Earth's population being a group of people, this seems to fit the bill.

Destroying natural rescources and starving/sickening populations has been wartime strategy since the dawn of man, but now is merely a side effect of environmental destruction to be visited all over the world. Even so, the idea of "environmental destruction" seems tame in the age of Iraq and the oh so lurking threat of terrorism.

Not that classifying environmental destruction as a crime against humanity would make much difference--it would simply racket up the propaganda. But isn't this needed? Scare tactics WORK, harsh language WORKS, gut responses get action. All the proof of global warming and pollution is great (I like the quote "global warming is a 'theory' like the 'theory' of evolution or the 'theory' of gravity"), but the language is clearly failing us. "An Inconvinient Truth" and movies like "The Day After Tommorow" are good for part of the job, but it seems like we need a massive overhaul of terms to make the destruction of the environment not merely "something to be concerned about" but rather "the most serious threat to humanity, America, democracy, and YOU." Fighting fire with fire...

A couple other things I found interesting: The Geneva Convention holds NO mention of the word "murder." Torture via radical temperature changes, sleep deprivation, starvation, and other physical discomfort (ala Chinese water torture) can be more effective than pulling out fingernails, put is not as of yet strictly classified as torture. It seems several definitions need updating...

If you read this, respond! I know you have information and insights that I do not, and I'd like this blog to be something of a forum for discussion as well as a cutesy "my diary." Take two seconds and share an idea.

Hawaii

I got back last night from a week in Hawaii (and a night in the airport). I went with Rez, and we stayed on Oahu, for a few days in Honolulu on the south coast and a few days on the north coast. All in hostels, taking public transit (hitchhiking one day) and eating beautifully unhealthily. Hawaii itself, at least the part we stayed, was Disneyland for the tropics--really just a more crowded Costa Rica without the lush plant and animal life. What was amazing was budget traveling with a friend, and all the people we met along the way. This was not so much "my trip to Hawaii" as "our social adventure around the world."

So, the sparknotes:

I arrived around sunset on the first night to see a double-rainbow above the mountains from the plane. I met up with Rez in the airport, and we took the bus to our first hostel in Waikiki (about 45 minutes away from the airport). On the bus we met Frank, an asian guy from New York with an incredible Bronx accent who, it turns out, had actually been behind me on the flight and who was going to the same hostel. After checking in, the three of us wandered the streets for a while, eating Burger King and ColdStone's before heading in for the night.

The next morning Frank left to meet his girlfriend at the airport (the last we saw of him), and Rez and I went on a hike to a nearby mountain which was organized by (and had about 7 people from) the hostel. There was a Frenchman, an Englishwoman, and a Scottish woman on the hike who I talked to a lot, and I got my first taste of how Europeans travel: in bulk. All of them were away from home for at LEAST two months, traveling around Asia, Australia and the US in one single, long trip. The French guy was working at the hostel for this month, getting managerial training and free room and board in exchange for his services. The English woman enthusiastically expounded on the differences between England and the US; the two bits I remember now are that she was having to get used to called "rubbish" "trash" (a term reserved for people exclisively in the UK--how sweet!), and that we was shocked and appalled that she had purchased a salad and they hadn't given her a knife to cut it with.

Getting back from the hike we met two Australian guys who were sharing our room: Glen (who organized concerts), and his quiet buddy Daniel (a surfer taking a break from school, who had never been outside of Australia before). We went to lunch at Taco Bell with them (Glen made it a point to come every time he was in the US, he said), and went swimming. Daniel, though the quieter of the two, was hilarious--his comment on the one dollar fee for the hike, "that's steep," was indicative of wonderfully terrible sense of humor. He was amazed by peanut butter and took every opportunity to eat it (especially with sweets) that he could get. He bought a belt with a gun on it, and was very proud of getting his gun in America.

That night was interesting. Rez's mom knew a guy from her villiage in Bangladesh who she knew from work but had never actually met, and we went and had dinner with him. He had a wife, three kids, and a nephew over, and I was the only one who didn't speak Bengali--which was an experience. Fortunately Rez scattered enough English into his Bengali so that I could understand most of what was going on, and the food was really good. After dinner, the guy gave us essentially a lecture on his view of life and what we should do with it. "Make the right choices," "The future is yours," "Money is important," and "Let me give you example" were favorite phrases of his. He drove us back to the hostel for the night.

The next day we visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial, which was somewhat of a bust in that it took a long time to get to and we had to wait a while to get in, but once inside had some interesting stuff. We got back in the evening and spent the night on-and-off with Glen and Daniel and some Australian girls from our room (it seemed like every fifth person was Australian--every other person was Japanese, but none of them were in the hostel). We went out for dinner (Beef! Chicken! Mahi Mahi! Spam! Delicious.), and went to a bar/restaurant where the Aussies drank and Rez and I were ridiculed by other tourists for our pathetic attempt to play pool. We wandered around, watching street performers as, early at night, the streets reached New York levels of congestion. We went back to the hostel, wandered the beach, went to get pastries, and finally fell asleep talking in hammocks at the hostel before it got cold and we moved inside to real beds.

The next day we took a free shuttle up to the north shore, where there was another hostel. Unlike crowded, touristy Honolulu, the north shore was a relaxed place filled with a lot of surfers who were frustrated at the severe lack of waves. After meeting Sarah, an English law student who would be one roommate, we swam, took a long and futile walk to try to get to a town, and went back to the hostel for a barbeque. As that died down, Rez, Sarah, and I went to a supermarket nearby to get orange juice (Rez and I both had the odd craving) and got caught in the pouring rain before reaching the freezing, air-conditioned store. Drinking orange juice, we went to the beach to look at the stars, which were pretty clear up there. I guess there was a meteor shower, because there were shooting stars every five minutes.

The next day Rez's mom called and said she wanted him to catch a flight back home, so I went off by myself to town (getting a ride from some people at the hostel). After eating lunch and seeing various galleries, surf museums and the "surfboard graveyard," where old, broken surfboard were carved and painted and made into art, I hitchhiked back to the hostel with three old computer geeks from Alabama. I went swimming for a while then (Rez can't swim and had been afraid of the water, so I hadn't gotten out as much as I would have liked to).

On on the rocks looking at tide pools, I ran into a military unit off-duty, a bunch of guys who had just gotten out of basic training. Most of the hostel people were in their 20's, so these guys were actually nearer my age than most of the people I'd been interacting with, and I hung out with them for the afternoon. They were intensely stereotypical. There was 'The Mexican," "The Funny Black Guy," "The Loner," "The quiet, nice, nature-loving soldier," and "The Jerk, with wife and kid at home." The contrast between them and the two Norgwegian girls (waitresses on their month-long Euro-vacation) who had just come into the hostel and who I spent the rest of the evening with was amazing. Only on this trip...

The next day I spent getting back to Honolulu and the airport, taking my leisurely time and finishing Milan Condera's "The Joke" (the writing is dense and Russian, but the story ties up beautifully). At the airport I met up with Rez--who still hadn't gotten out and, as I am writing this, still has not--and missed the 10:15 flight. We spent the night in the airport, getting more and more rediculous as time went on.

By the middle of Monday when I had finally gotten on a flight, I had smuggled banannas into the airport (we were going to just eat them there instead of overpriced airport food, but "no produce!"), and got onto my flight wearing a Burger King crown.

This proved to be an interesting contrast. The flight was full, so I got a seat usually reserved for flight attendants (it went all the way back--nice!) next to an army guy going back for 5 more months in Iraq. It was intensely surreal, after a night of almost no sleep, to sit in a Burger King crown next to a guy who got shot at every day, who had watched two of his friends get blown up, and who for two weeks had seen his baby for the first time in 10 months.

And I arrived home. Keep your fingers crossed for Rez!

Vacation

Tommorow I'm off to Hawaii (Honolulu) for a week away from nasty computers. Wish me luck, and I'll tell you all about it when I get back!

Themed Restaurants!

I'm sure the food is terribly/mediocre, but I love the idea of themed restaurants. The idea of simply having rude waiters is awesome, but these are truly origional and wierd. A few examples:

-All staff are twins
-All staff are blind, and you dine in complete darkness
-Staff throw free rolls at patrons
-The restaurant is run by missonary nuns singing "Ave Maria" to the guests
-A vegetarian restaurant where you are fined if you do not finish your food
-Meals are cooked using volcanic heat
-A restaurant in Stalin's bunker. Reservations required.

Link: http://restoran.us/trivia/unusual.htm

AND the Islam fact-of-the-day: (William told us this) 20% of China is Muslim--mostly in the north-west region, right by Pakistan. Surprising, but it makes sense.

Visiting a Korean grocery store/restaurant in Korea Town

I skipped two parties tonight to go with Cheolseung tonight to Korea Town to do his shopping and have dinner. Today is just multicultural central!

The Korean market was different--its strangeness reminded me of the grocery stores in Chile. Things I take for granted (cheese, for example) are completely absent. First we went into a video store inside the larger grocery store and Cheolseung rented about 6 Korean movies...all melodramas, he said. We then went through the isles, starting with fruit and vegetables. Mostly fruit, really, and what was really interesting was how heavy the section was on roots and mushrooms--and whats more, that seemed to be what most people were getting. My impression of Korean food (having eaten it all of...twice) is that it largely consists of big soups, more "entree in water" than what we consider soup, along with about a million side dishes. The veggies of choice seemed to reflect things you might put in a soup. Also facinating were a huge fresh fish section with live flatfish (halibut?) and abalone, along with a lot of squid-on-ice. Nearby was an entire isle of frozen packages of fish, all of which, according to Cheolseung, were supposed to be part of soup. Nearby was an isle devoted to side-dishes, and opposite it a buffet-style row of vats with various side dishes and containers, so that you could scoup as much of the side (lots of pickled things, lots of kimchi) into a container yourself to buy it, and eat it throught he week. The best part? The store was filled with Korean people, speaking Korean, buying Korean food with Korean lables. And the teller and bag guy were talking to each other in rapid...Spanish. Only in LA.

The Korean restaurant was a trip too. I was amazed when we went for a full Korean barbecue a few months ago, but figured what they did there must be a special thing. Not so! We sat down and were immediately given a pitcher of Korean ice tea (think Thai ice tea) for no charge. Then, two bowls of rice and four appetizers--a gellylike thing, harder gellylike things, kimchi, and pickled stringbeans. All what, in an American restaurant, would be considered full appetizers and would cost $5-7 a pop. Here, when one got low, a waitress came by and refilled it. Cheolseung said that, in Korea, it is considered bad manners to leave a side dish empty. Also, according to him, you can tell the quality of a restaurant by the number and quality of their side dishes. This one only had 4 plus rice...a B. The American capitalist inside me cried a little.

The main dish was chicken soup--a whole, small chicken in rice-broth, with little fruits, nuts, ginsing, and leeks. But now I'm getting stupidly detailed so I'll stop. I will say, though, that today has been a great day. I think I may make it a goal to visit the religious centers and grocery stores (two main cultural centers, as far as I am concerned) of various cultures and religions. It's just damn interesting!

Impressions on visiting a Mosque

Don't worry, I'm not about to convert. But I've been to Christian weddings, funerals, and the accompanying church services. I've been to Jewish weddings, funerals, and Barmitzfas. I'm an equal opportunity atheist.

So:

All religions are the same. All sermons are the same. The very tone of voice is the same.

When singing the prayers, the leader has his back to those who pray, facing into a hollow cavity by what, in a Christian church, would be the pulpit. I interpret this similarly to the refusal to have graven images. The prayer, the voice, does not belong to the person who utters it—it belongs to all. It is egoless.

You can tell that Islam is a desert religion. The images, the colours in the Mosque all point to this, for they suggest a desert oasis. The walls are all white, the carpets red and patterned simply. But every time there is a design, or picture, or letters in Arabic, they appear in blue, like water. The images are all of plants—flowers, trees, leaves. Even the designs suggest vines and roots. The effect is not emasculating, as it would be in a different kind of church. As gold and crosses are “heaven” to Christianity, black tradition to Judaism, so green and blue, flowers and leaves are “heaven” to a desert religion.

The act of prayer is different, because it is a physical act. Not an intensely physical one, but physical enough to engage the body as well as the mind. In this way, Islam becomes an exercise as well as a belief.

A people, and a people’s mentality, are shaped by the religion. The sermon seemed to have three components (which I was aware of). The first was history, tradition, Arabic directly from the Koran, translations, the stories of Mohammed. The next component was instruction, not what a good Muslim was—it seemed assumed that all present were good Muslims—but rather what a good Muslim should strive to do. Central to this was the belief that, though Allah would help, tasks had to be undertaken and struggled through personally. You had to do 99% of the work, hard work, and Allah would only give the final but crucial 1%. The final aspect of the sermon, and the aspect which I found most interesting, was mathematical. Here, the sermon acted as a proof, justifying everything that was said—not only why right action was right, but why Mohammed would record a chapter which seemed to glorify himself, because it reality it glorified God. The structure of the sermon was that of a proof, and it seemed as analytical within the structure of the faith as it was based on blind belief in what the sermon-giver said.

All of my Muslim friends have a distinctive way of speaking, not an accent as much as an intonation. From having foreign parents, of course, but listening to the intonation of the prayers (which no doubt mirror the rhythms of Arabic) I could hear something of the intonation that gives a distinctive speaking voice even in English.

And, of course, women. I was pleasantly surprised in the Koran to see how equal of a role women (for that time) were given alongside men. Here, the women and men prayed in separate rooms. I would be fascinated to see what the women did. I can only think, though, that listening to separate sermons, being in a separate place, somehow the men and women are worshiping different Gods. Every teacher, every classroom colours what one learns of a subject, and I imagine religious teaching is the same way. In this way, different genders are kept in the dark about what the other is thinking, worshiping, what they believe it is right to do.

Addendum:

I talked to Rez afterward, and I was wrong in my interpretation of a few points. Women do not listen to a different sermon, or pray separate prayers. They are merely in a different room, getting the backwash of what the men get by watching the sermon and prayers on a screen via the miracle of video technology. So they watch the same service, second hand. So, they are second rate. Rez says that this is so the men and women will not be distracted by each other—they bend and kneel in their prayers, the physicality would make it easy to stray into perversion. Perhaps, but there must be a better way. This seems to me simply wrong.

The second thing is that the chanted call-to-prayer and recitations of the Koran are not done specifically toward a wall, but rather simply always in the direction of Mecca. This changes little though: still, the leader prays with, not to, the followers. Still, it is an egoless prayer.

The Bell Jar

This marks the second book I have read this summer and truly enjoyed, the first being "Life of Pi". The Bell Jar may be femlit, but it's GOOD femlit, "The Devil Wears Prada" but with a spine or, to be decidedly un-feminist, balls. It managed to be quick and witty without becoming trite, and really explores themes above and beyond the run-of-the-mill story, but in a more accessible way than, say, "The Awakening". Just good, depressing fun.

By the way, I'm going to Hawaii for a week on Tuesday. Any advice/suggestions welcome!

It's Tuesday

And already this week is hectic: a response to last week's calm. I got my visa for the UK...on Sunday went to the beach and, when it was so crowded we could not get a bonfire spot, just gave up and went to Islands to eat. Started reading Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar", which I am, surprisingly, really liking. On Monday, had about 6 hours of rehersal for rehersal's sake and for our Butoh performance at the end of this week. After rehersal I went walking with Rachael, who is leaving for college and New York tommorow (it doesn't start yet, but she's driving up), and broke into El Marino where we went to elementary school together and wandered around the halls for nostalgia's sake. Today I went to a delicious Asian curry place with some friends and stuffed myself to the point where it sustained me with nothing else eaten until 10 tonight. I went swimming at Andrea's pool, which was fun, and biked back. Rehersal again, which is turning out to be really fun and actually a little relaxing. Then, went to say goodby to Rachael, and here I am now. I am in an strange mood, which partly explains how inarticuate I feel/am right now.